Today is a very frustrating day in the world of Arsenal as we start a two week International break. Just as we were gathering momentum and Man United and Chelsea started losing, the law of International games breaking up the lovely Premier League campaign has duly kicked in... England are playing [hold, let me google this] two teams this mid-week and weekend and they're probably going to be dull and dour affairs - with no Arsenal players involved for England, we'll have to look abroad to see how our players do. Knowing the consequences of an International window, we should all be crossing our fingers hoping we don't suffer from more injuries!
Arsene has been in the papers again. He said he is crazy and he says we can still win the league. It's true, we can - but it would require a massive slip up by United, Liverpool and Chelsea.
“I still have hope because I am a little bit crazy. Realistically, no [it is not on]. But it does not matter how much chance that we have, we have to get as close as possible. It happens to teams. Manchester United are still in a strong position. No team has looked like they were not vulnerable at all this year. Nobody has been really dominating this League this year. We have all had our weak periods. Manchester United won 10 games 1-0 and they have the quality to finish it off. But you can see how important psychology is to a team.
“They had a big disappointment last week. That is difficult for everybody. When you have a big knock it sometime takes you a long time to recover but they will recover. I am sure of that because their manager has experience, their players have experience and they have one game in hand.”
So, if we do somehow win every single fixture we play, then we will end up on 89 points. By winning all of our remaining 8 fixtures, we will beat United, Chelsea and Liverpool on the way. United have an easy run in, but do have to play Villa next, Middlesborough away and the Manchester derby. Three more games they could easily drop points in. Let’s say they draw all three, suddenly, we’ve made up 9 points on them (including when we beat them, which would see us level on points)… very interesting…
It’s a crazy ambition, but very possible – just as Man United won 10 games in a row earlier this season, we could do the same. I really do think we’re on a run so fingers crossed, let’s see how far up the table we can finish!
Meanwhile, up in the Midlands, Matin O’Neill has talking playing down Villa top four hope and commented that Arsenal are not cactchable – a little bit of a mind game telling us we’re safe a dry now, trying to pounce if we slip up. Let’s use this as a warning:
“You would have to say now there won’t be much of a threat from us to Arsenal’s position. It’s no fluke that the top four are where they are and we are in a dip right now. We are not as strong as those four clubs. I have said it many times before and I will say it again – we still have a lot of catching up to do. It is still reachable as Arsenal have many tough games to come. But they are getting some of their injured players back and it’s going to be very, very tough.”
We do need to focus on gaining ground and our next game is a home game against Man City – the team who inflicted our heaviest defeat of the season on us… time for more revenge? That game is on the 4th of April… it’ll be agony!
The next two weeks will see me write about not much at all…!!!
Til tomorrow…]]>
